Diverse competitor B cell responses to a germline-targeting priming immunogen in human Ig loci transgenic mice

Abstract

Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) have promise to protect against HIV infection, but induction of bnAbs by immunization is an unsolved vaccine design challenge. Germline-targeting priming immunogens aim to initiate the induction of bnAbs by specifically activating rare bnAb-precursor B cells that can subsequently be matured using suitable heterologous boosting and shepherding immunogens. Several pre-clinical studies, and the IAVI G001 human clinical trial, have demonstrated the ability of a germline-targeting priming immunogen, eOD-GT8 60mer, to induce precursors of the VRC01 class of bnAbs. However, much less is known about B cells induced against other epitopes of the immunogen. Here, we performed unbiased analysis of B cells induced by eOD-GT8 60mers in Intelliselect Transgenic mice (Kymice) that are transgenic for the human Ig loci and produce human-like BCRs. B cells isolated with intact eOD-GT8 60mer nanoparticles showed a large diversity of non-VRC01-class B cells, with 38% unique clonotypes and only 5% of BCRs belonging to public lineages shared among all animals. We found that many competitors recognize epitopes in close proximity to or overlapping with the VRC01 epitope. These results indicate that optimal boosting of VRC01-class bnAb-precursor B cells primed by eOD-GT8 60mer might require a first-boost immunogen that minimizes recognition of competitor B cells, and such competitors isolated from Kymice could serve as valuable reagents for boost development.